I'm pretty sure somebody did go in and fix the X11 desktop..... It was Apple w/ OSX.

When a game starts, it wants the entire desktop, it doesn't want the other desktop elements at all, no dock, no icons, interaction, etc.

Why isn't there a function to create a new virtual desktop at any resolution you want and leave the other desktop untouched? So when you switch between them it knows to switch resolutions as well. Have the resolution tag part of the desktop, so when you switch between them it knows what to switch to.

Seems like an easy fix.

I seriously attribute my love for adventure games to help me refine my troubleshooting skills and drive to "find the answer".

I believe that it's troubleshooting and the drive to find the answer that makes someone stand out in the work place, whether it's programming or anything else.

I played a lot of Kings Quest, The Secret of Monkey Island, Space Quest, Myst, etc.

Don't take away their freedom to do something they enjoy.

I don't know if anybody "enjoys" smoking. They probably enjoyed it the first year or two when it was cool to hang out with the friends and feel cool "smoking", but nobody enjoys smelling like that all day long, or having their breath stink, or have your body take the toll it goes through from smoking. It's something that starts out socially, and then slowly but surely becomes incorporated into their daily living experience as a vice.

Someone needs to come up with some new "cool" way for people who hardly know each other can hang out and feel part something that doesn't involved sex, drugs, alcohol or smoking something. Smoking is a gateway to feel like you have friends. If you ask a stranger for a bite of a hamburger or a couple french fries they're going to think you're insane, ask for a light or a cigarette and they'll put down whatever they're doing and reach in their pocket and gladly help you out.

Same thing goes with the workforce. If you want to feel immediately cool, follow the group of people down to the smoking section and immediately there's a group of people who welcome you in to make you feel like you have a group of people to hang out with and talk to. Plus who can argue with going outside and talking with people all day long? It seems like smokers get the free-pass to leave their desk anytime they feel like it, and they have a good excuse.

With the high-school social desires of teens and interoffice acceptance of smoking it makes for tough competitor to "nothing".

Instead of putting all this money towards increased anti-smoking campaigns, all they would need to do is funnel a little bit of money into some sort of "social spots" that have gum, some candy, soda, water, nice chairs, and a place where it's accepted to hang out and talk for a few minutes and move on. This would give people the gratification they want to go into an area and hang out for a few minutes, talk, and go back to work. I think the problem with this idea is that there's no acceptable "need" to go down there every few hours. People might look at you as a slacker hanging down there, whereas the smoker doesn't get deemed a slacker for "going for a smoke"..

I think the problem is that people are trying to answer the question with a "one size fits all" approach to answering the question. Sure anybody who can make toast can program. But not everybody can make a toaster.

What I mean by that is you mentioned that the average joe mechanics don't have these conversations, but you have to consider that the average mechanic is not making the advancements or creating the car from pouring casts and machining the parts. They're assembling or disassembling. There is creativity in finding a problem with a car before taking the whole thing apart but otherwise it's fairly laid out.

Programmers, the big daddy programmers are special and unique. Just like the engineers who created a ferrari or any other major achievement. Any body can program, but not everybody has the patience, confidence or desire to take on massive tasks by themselves.

I have programmed for many years and I have never found a good workflow of working with a large team of developers to create a specific product. So far what I have seen is one or two highly motivated individuals to create the bulk of the product and the rest become break/fix contributors or continuing development after the product is well underway.

It's just what I have seen. And those examples could make me an exception not the rule but that's what I've seen.

Were projects like MySQL or PostgreSQL initially effects of one or two highly motivated and focused individuals? I know that unix was and about evey project I have ever seen at the early stages.

Being that these efforts are largely surrounded by individual contributors I think it enables these individual's to feel special and different. And to be honesty, anyone who takes on these massive feats and succeeds is unique and different. The rest are "programmers".

Who said the brain is binary? Computers are binary, brains are analog. There's a lot more going on then on and off switches.

That reminds me of what the north American Indians had done. I would imagine there are songs of ancient time passed along due to this type of memory being the most protected.

Makes you wonder if there is something to the notion of singing angel references in the bible and why people sing in churches.

I have always found it so fascinating at how prevalent music is in our culture and profound an impact music has made on our history and makes up "who we are". Just about every kid in America is defined by a band or song or type of music. Just about every era is depicted by a musical theme.

It is almost completely correlated of advancements in music relate to advancements in technology.

Interesting.

I think these guys missed the mark by a long shot.

People aren't just "searching" any more. People have "apps", "portals", they have go-to places to get things. Google isn't where you go any more. People know what websites they want to use or they use the iPad or iPhone apps to find things. I believe it's the "app" revolution that changed the dynamics. People go to wikipedia to research stuff, open one of their apps to find a recipe for dinner or ask siri what to get for lunch.

Any machine being used for purposes outside of the intent of the owner should be shut down. Owners should be notified and given time to respond, but if they are unaware of the additional traffic their computer is spewing then they should be shut down until corrected.

Unfortunatly service providers probably don't care, they would probably rather have the $29.99/mo customer rather then shutting them down until it's fixed.

Ya whatever. We have constantly been living within different wifi standards such as 802.11a/b/n/whatever. Non techies understand the differences, but joe blow just listens to whatever the bestbuy guy at the store says. Bestbuy guy hands him a router and a card or whatever and pats him on the head and moves along to the counter. Same thing with 3G compatibility for iPads or what have you. People understand that not all 3G is compatible. People don't even know what 4g is yet. But it's all just marketing crap and at the end of the day people ask the techies what to do and hopefully they tell the consumers to get the correct stuff.

Having developed many projects, I personally can attest that I don't get anything productive done until everybody is asleep or if I decide to tune everybody out. It seems like there are too many real and "potential" distractions that my mind is chewing on instead of coming up with solutions to problems.

I have found it helpful to come together as a group once I have had plenty of time to think about what I want to do, along with the others having that same opportunity. That way we can have a discussion about ideas that have been thought through instead of just winging it.

Yah, that could make for a problem buying used phones on ebay.... you'd never know why someone is selling a "perfectly good and working phone" for a discount.

Maybe coat all your batteries independently and the device without the battery in .... that would solve that I would imagine. Good question.

My friend knows these guys and had his iPhone done. I didn't believe it, but it's legit.

The reason is that the price is setup to pay for the "movie going experience", paying for the theater. But the reality is that a film that was less expensive to make should cost less to see it. That would be a good idea for the industry to embrace to combat feeling like they need to have a huge block buster, huge budget film to make any traction.